Single Minded Purpose

A Frantic Plea

What was that phone call all about, Seraph wondered. Initially, he had been hesitant to believe Persephone’s vague warning, but he had been in the employ of the Merovingian for too long to idly discount the validity of the intuitions of his wife. The more Seraph thought about it, the more he realized that Persephone, like the Oracle, had never been wrong in her predictions. Apprehension and fear about Sarah’s well-being began to coalesce and take hold in his mind.

If that is the case, then there is definitely something wrong with Sarah, Seraph thought to himself. I have to see her as soon as possible. Persephone had not mentioned that Smith in any way but Seraph had a hunch that Smith was somehow involved. Since Smith had not managed to defeat Neo that very afternoon despite the overwhelming odds in his favour, he was not likely to be in the best of moods; and knowing Sarah’s disposition of giving as good as she gets especially in an argument, then I fear she is in real trouble.

Wasting no time, he headed directly to her apartment. The closer he was to Sarah, the more the feeling of dread appeared to weigh on his shoulders. We were supposed to have lunch together, but she never showed up. Something was wrong, horribly wrong with her and she needs me. Usually I can tell what is going on with her and how she is feeling, but as of 1:25 this afternoon, it is almost as if an invisible wall suddenly and forcefully cut her off from me. Before I go any further, I have to consult with the Oracle—she will know what to do, she always does. He broke into a run.

“Oracle,” panted Seraph as he burst into her apartment, “something is wrong with Sarah. Will you come with me?”

The Oracle looked completely unsurprised at her protector’s violent and unexpected entrance. She glanced at the Architect who was sitting with her at her kitchen table and they both got to their feet.

“We can all go in my car,” the Architect said. “It’ll be faster that way; besides, no one will stop me and we won’t have to deal with any unpleasantness from the police or the upgrades—they know well enough not to interfere with anything I do.”

Seraph whispered his heartfelt thanks and the Architect nodded. “Lead the way.”

lllll

Seraph raised his foot and kicked in the door to Sarah’s apartment. Abruptly, the firewall that Smith had installed completed its cycle and shut down. Seraph stopped short on the threshold; his knees would no longer support him and he clung to the doorframe in order to keep himself upright. He closed his eyes in horror as the images of what had happened inside the apartment threatened to overwhelm him…

Sarah screaming before she was silenced somewhat with the gag. Sarah fighting helplessly fought against Smith’s lackeys, their hands holding her down in their inexorable and inescapable grip as her legs were forced apart yet again. Sarah crying out his name as one of Smith’s selves proceeded to violate her, followed by another and another and another...Please nooo!

“No!” Seraph moaned as he fell to his knees clutching his temples hearing her last coherent words reverberate through his head . For hours she had suffered; and during all that time, she had been crying out for me wondering where I was and why I never came; perhaps she even thought that I had abandoned her. But what finally broke her was the callous and cruel destruction before her very eyes of her most treasured memento—the photograph I took of her son after he was born.

“Oh my God,” Seraph whispered, when he saw Sarah’s prone and lifeless body on the floor of her apartment. Her dress was bunched up to her waist and her torn underwear was lying a few feet from her body. He ran over to where she lay and knelt on the floor, holding the body of the woman he loved in his arms, rocking her back and forth, murmured words mixing with the tears falling freely from his eyes and wetting Sarah’s cheek as he pressed it against his.

“You’re going to be all right, Sarah, I’m here now. No one will ever hurt you again. Please, please be all right!” he whispered, his hand reaching up to brush a lock of hair away from her eyes.

He looked into their pale blue depths but only a blank shell where a fiery, lively disposition once dwelled stared back at him. Conscious of the Architect’s unobtrusive presence at the doorway, Seraph discreetly re-arranged Sarah’s clothing so that her modesty was not compromised. What is wrong with her, he thought, concerned and perplexed. It is as if her mind has completely shut down.

The Oracle knelt down, put her hand on Sarah’s forehead and shook her head.

“Why isn’t she responding? Is she…is she dead?” Seraph asked.

“No, Seraph. She’s still alive.” It would have been better if Smith had killed her—that at least would have been humane the Oracle thought, but instead he chose to leave her like this. What he did to her was cruel beyond imagination.

“You must be able to do something! I mean…we’ve only just found each other,” Seraph paused, his voice breaking.

“I know, son,” the Oracle said sadly.

“This can’t be the end of us, not like this. I can’t—I won’t lose her.”

“There is nothing I can do.”

“Yes, you can! You are the Oracle--you can do anything!” He shouted at her, and it was the first time in their lengthy partnership that he had ever spoken to her in such a tone. “You can correct this virus that Smith implanted in her. You can override and overwrite what has been done to her and make her as she was! Please!”

“Seraph…”

“Please, Oracle!” Seraph begged. “I haven’t asked for anything during all the time I have protected you and you know that. But I’m asking now: do this for me, for Sarah.”

“What you ask is difficult…”

“Don’t even think about it,” the Architect warned her from where he stood.

The Oracle gave him a steely glare. “Do not presume to tell me what I can or cannot do with my own programming—it’s mine to keep or give as I see fit. And right now, I will help my daughter. If you don’t like it, I believe you can go to hell.”

The Architect recognized futility when he saw it. “So be it,” he said coldly. “But before you proceed, are you aware of the consequences of your actions? You know, do you not, what will be required of you?”

“I do. My mind is made up. You can leave or you can stay, I don’t give a damn.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

The Oracle tightly pursed her lips together in disapproval but said nothing as she glanced down at her daughter, giving her a momentary but thorough glance at her code. Something else is wrong with Sarah, she thought to herself, something that is familiar; as if I’ve seen it before, but what could it mean, she wondered.

“I have to examine her,” the Oracle said, looking at both Seraph and the Architect. “You two,” she ordered, “will need to move Sarah to her bed.” When that was accomplished, the Oracle sat beside her daughter and took her hand. “Get out,” she said to the two men, “and close the door behind you.”

When the door closed, the Oracle turned her attention to her young charge.

“I know you can hear me, Sarah, and I also know that you are not able to respond, but there are more ways of communicating than just one, so don’t trouble yourself about not being able to speak.”

He destroyed my only picture of Alex.

“I know what Smith did, but you must trust me: there is nothing he can do that I cannot put right. Just remember that.”

Can you fix it?

Although the question was not verbal, the Oracle heard what her daughter wanted to communicate nonetheless. As any mother knows, she is able to determine what her child feels by a simple look. The shame and grief depicted in Sarah’s eyes was painful to look at, but sometimes a mother must put aside her personal feelings and be strong in order to give support to her hurt offspring. “I can and will restore his picture to you, Sarah.”

Thank you, Mom.

Sarah paused, and then communicated the words her mother dreaded to hear but Sarah knew she needed to convey.

Smith hurt me. He held me down and…

”I know everything, child, you don’t need to tell me,” the Oracle said softly and brushed away the tears of shame and humiliation that trickled down Sarah’s face. “I have to scan your code now to see what’s been done and how best to correct it, all right?”

She ran her fingertips over the prone form of her daughter, starting at her forehead and gradually working her way down her body. The older woman nodded grimly as she assessed the internal damage that Sarah had suffered. Smith and his cohorts certainly did a number on you, didn’t they she thought. Her fingers paused at the area just below Sarah’s navel. I knew it, the Oracle realized; it has already begun. She sighed.

What is it? What’s wrong?

“You’re pregnant.” The Oracle saw rather than felt the joy that suffused Sarah’s entire being. I should have realized before how much losing her first child meant to her, the older woman thought to herself. She thinks the baby is Seraph’s and I have to be honest with her now for when the child is born, she will know just by looking at it that I lied to her.

“Sarah, it isn’t Seraph’s baby you are carrying. I’m sorry, honey.”

Smith’s?

“It is.”

No! Help me, Mother! Take it out of me and kill it!

“Sarah, I can’t kill it. Although I know you want me to, there are some laws in the Matrix that even I must not break. But, you should know me by now—even though I can’t break the rules, I do bend them from time to time. That said, I’m going to do something that no one must ever know about. What I am going to say and do must NEVER leave this room, do you understand?”

Yes.

“I am going to alter the Matrix code that is already growing inside of you so that Seraph will be the father of this baby, not Smith.”

Can you really do that?

“Of course I can, honey.”

But won’t the Mainframe be able to find out what you’ve done eventually?

“No one, and I mean no one will be able to find or destroy the firewalls I set up, don’t you worry. But I need you to be quiet now so I can concentrate.” She touched Sarah’s forehead again and smiled as her daughter’s eyes glazed over and closed. She was asleep.

Now I can begin the Oracle thought. She found the location of the storage of Sarah’s reproductive files and was able to access them without any difficulty. Here comes the hard part, she thought, her forehead furrowing in concentration as she began the process of infiltrating and replacing the nested system of programming that had already implanted itself into the side of Sarah’s uterus and was beginning to grow.

Without warning, Sarah’s inert body twitched and began to spasm uncontrollably. Alarmed, the Oracle stopped what she was doing to investigate what was causing her daughter’s system to crash. She watched as the spiked gauges that signalled system failure returned to their normal boundaries. Could this just be an isolated anomaly or a fluke of some sort, she wondered. She tried the procedure again with the exact same results.

Now this is strange, she thought to herself. It is as if her body is defying me somehow; trying to prevent—wait. Something inside her knows exactly what I am trying to do and is threatening her life as if warning me not to proceed, but what could be causing that?

It’s you, isn’t it, the Oracle thought, placing her hand over Sarah’s womb. Somehow, you are already cognizant enough to recognize the danger that you are in and you are defending yourself the only way you know how—by jeopardizing your own mother’s life to get me to stop. You may have won this round, little one, but the Architect and I will put our heads together to figure out a way to save our daughter, you can depend on that.

However, there is one thing I can do and that is to remove all of her memories of the last few hours. No woman, not even you, my frail and fragile daughter, needs to be reminded of how you were brutalized today.

A blur of green coding exited the Oracle’s fingers and entered Sarah’s system. One was to repair any and all damage to Sarah from the virus Smith had had implanted in her while the second was to remove the last few hours from Sarah’s memory.

As she had expected, Seraph was waiting outside the door. “How is she? Will she be all right?” he asked anxiously.

“She’ll be fine, Seraph. She just needs to rest.”

Seraph nodded and turned away so that his mother would not see the tears that filled his eyes. “This is all Smith’s doing,” he said harshly in a tone of voice neither of his parents had ever heard from him. They met one another’s eye over Seraph’s bowed shoulders that shook with the enormity of his grief. He hastily wiped his eyes with his sleeve; he had important work to do now, and if he were to succeed, he would have to be strong. “I have to leave, Oracle, and I hope you understand why I have to go.”

“I know. Just be careful and come back as soon as you can.”

“Father,” he said, addressing the Architect, “you will have to remain here in my absence to ensure that no harm will come to Mother.”

The Architect looked down at his son in annoyance. “I can’t stay here and you know that. I have a desk full of work that I have to finish…” He never had the opportunity to complete his sentence as Seraph grabbed him by the lapels of his light grey suit and forcefully slammed him against the wall.

“You will stay here and watch over Mother, do you understand me? And if you are not here when I return, then you will have to answer to me.”

The Architect dumbly nodded his head and Seraph released him, before turning abruptly and rushing from the room.

“You know where he is going, don’t you?” the Oracle said.

Her companion nodded. “To take his revenge on Smith.”

Something in his tone made the Oracle glance at him sharply. “Can you blame him after what Smith did to our daughter?”

“No. I only hope that Seraph can survive against him.”

“Don’t worry; Seraph’s anger will give him the strength he needs to thoroughly bash that bastard to a bloody pulp,” the Oracle said, her voice was strained with the anger she was feeling. “Seraph will kick Smith’s ass soundly, you can be sure of that. Sarah will be avenged.”

“Good. And speaking of our daughter, I know what you said when you were in the bedroom with her,” the Architect said, his gaze hard and cold as he looked at his colleague. “Did you do it?” he demanded.

“Do what?”

“You know damn well what I am talking about.”

“No, I wasn’t able to.”

“Why not?”

“Because our daughter’s system was too weak and damaged from her assault; if I had tried to change the paternity, I would have run the risk of causing more harm to her. When she is stronger or maybe in a few days, then I will try again. But for now….”

“This can’t wait a few days, it has to be done NOW, don’t you see?” With a great effort, he managed to get himself under control. “He damaged her that badly?” the Architect said quietly, his face white and stricken.

The Oracle nodded sombrely. “Yes, he did.”

“What about her memory?”

“I altered it so that she won’t remember what happened during the last few hours. When she wakes up, all she will know is that Seraph loves her and they belong together.”

“What about her memories of Smith?”

“She won’t know what he did to her after he hit her. As far as she’s concerned, she has given him information and they were intimate once, but that’s it. Only you, I and Seraph will be the only ones who know what’s been done to her.”

“And Smith.”

“Yes, and Smith too.”

“What if he finds out about the pregnancy? You have to change to paternity now for you know as well as I do that if you wait a few days…” If we wait even that long, he thought to himself, it will be too late. If what I suspect about that baby is true, then we are in serious trouble already.

“I already told you, I can’t do that because Sarah is far too weak and any additional stress on either her mind or body will cause her CPU to crash. You programmed the gestation period to be ridiculously short for all females who reach childbearing age. Humans give birth in 36 weeks, while we have only four. What were you thinking?” she snapped angrily. “Four weeks isn’t nearly long enough to detect, let alone repair, a damaged or flawed offspring. Why didn’t you give us more time?”

“The reason I gave you such a short period of time is that I did not want our women to be as inconvenienced as the humans were by a nine month gestation. I did what I thought was best at the time; how the hell was I to know…”He broke off, interrupted by a sudden “shushing” motion of the Oracle’s hand.

“What is it?” he whispered.

“I thought I heard something; like someone leaning against the door. It’s nothing—probably only my imagination.” She shook her head to clear it. “Anyway, we have a few days to correct the paternity from Smith to Seraph and the sooner I do it, the better.”

“The last thing the Matrix needs right now is for Smith to procreate again. Besides, with the way he’s been replicating himself…” The older man shook his head in defeat. “No one can stop him, not even the upgrades. He just takes them over with no effort at all, adding yet another soldier to his army.”

“I know, I know,” the Oracle said soothingly, patting his shoulder. “But you are wrong--there is someone who can stop him and when the time is right, he will.”

“Are you referring to The One?” the Architect said with a slight sneer. “Since when do we programs need a saviour, and a human one at that?”

“Since we lost control over one of our own, that‘s why. Smith is on a path of destruction that will destroy the Matrix and us. He won’t stop. He has had a taste of power and he likes it. It’s an elixir, an addictive drug to him and he will only want more.”

“Is the end coming?” the Architect asked, a flicker of fear passing over his features.

“Yes, it is,” the Oracle said sadly.

“How soon?”

The Oracle shrugged. “Too soon, I’m afraid.”

“Is there nothing we can do?” her companion asked and his voice trembled for a moment. He would always deny it afterwards when the Oracle mentioned it to him, but for a few seconds, he felt genuine human emotion.

“No. Neo is the only one who can stop him.”

“And if he can’t?” the Architect queried, his tone pensive and concerned.

“Then we will be destroyed; every single human and program in the Matrix. The essence of what we are, what we could be, will be gone forever.”

The Architect took the Oracle’s arm as she made to go back into the room where Sarah lay. “Do we tell Seraph about the pregnancy and who is the father?”

“I will tell him only after I have altered the child’s paternity, not before. Seraph has served me well all these years and this is something I have no right to keep from him, but I must. God knows he has earned the truth, but I cannot break his heart by telling him the woman he loves is carrying Smith’s child. Any man who knew Smith would have problems accepting it; Jones did too, remember?”

“If it is irrevocable, we will have to tell Seraph—all he will need is one look into that child’s face and especially those eyes to figure out the truth.” He sighed deeply. How can I tell you what I know, he thought. You may know the future, my love, but I know what is going to happen if the pregnancy is allowed to continue.

The Oracle gave him a sharp look. “What is it that you are not telling me?” she demanded. “You’ve been on edge ever since I finished with Sarah. You are hiding something; I know it.”

Her companion turned away before he answered. For the first time in his existence, he was tempted, very tempted to lie to her. But you deserve better than that, he thought to himself and distasteful as the truth is, you need to hear it. “You are not going to like this,” he warned.

“I haven’t liked anything about this whole damn day,” she spat. “Just tell me.”

“Sarah will not have a normal gestation time of four weeks; she will have much less time than that.”

“Why?”

“Smith, as we both know, is an agent program and was not supposed to procreate but he has. Twice.”

“I know all this, get to the—oh no,” the Oracle groaned. “She will have less than four weeks because the pregnancy will be accelerated in her case, because an agent is the father of her baby. That’s why you were so persistent about me changing the paternity as soon as possible.”

The Architect nodded sadly. “Before the week is out, she will be experiencing morning sickness. But I think it will be sooner than that.”

“So soon? But I could not proceed to alter the father’s coding to that of Seraph; it was like her body was rejecting the attempt.”

“Actually, it was the fetus that did that—it sensed what you were about to do and it reacted in self-preservation. He or she knew that you wanted to save Sarah’s life at all costs and that you would stop if her life were threatened. And you did, just like it wanted.”

The Oracle tried to digest what he had just told her. “I know, I felt could feel that it was already aware of what I was trying to do.”

“Remember, it is the child of an agent that we are talking about and it has abilities of which we know nothing. Seraph will have to know and the sooner the better. I know he told you to leave things as they are, but we have to find a way to convince him that it is in both of their interests to agree to an abortion. And if the baby tried to fight your attempt to change the paternity, it may already be too late to terminate the pregnancy itself.”

“Sarah will never agree to get rid of this baby,” the Oracle shook her head decidedly. “When she lost Alex, her heart was broken. She will see this baby as a replacement for the one she lost.”

“She might agree if she knew that Smith is that child’s father, not Seraph.”

Now it was the Oracle’s turn to wish to hide the truth. I already know what will happen when she finds out –she will seek an illegal second trimester abortion and die as a result. No qualified or reputable obstetrician or gynaecologist will even think of performing the procedure unless the mother’s life was in serious jeopardy. Moreover, he or she will undoubtedly know that this is not the case just by taking one look at her.

Our poor desperate daughter will be forced to seek out someone who is unscrupulous and greedy to the extreme to rid herself of the unwanted burden that has now started to grow inside of her. This so-called professional will be someone who is perfectly willing to risk my daughter’s life in exchange for lots of cold hard cash. Sarah will die, bleeding to death in some filthy hotel room and it will be my fault for keeping the truth from her until it is too late.

Her vision of Sarah’s future caused her lower lip to tremble and her eyes fill with tears. She was enveloped in the strong embrace of her long-time friend and lover who, although he did not possess the gift of clairvoyance, knew what would happen to Sarah as well as her mother did.